LXV. CHAP. son, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war62. Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon, a numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to open the road, to subdue the Pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities and magazines in the desert; and, by the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed the winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia; and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and nine months. His tri- 1404, JulyA. D. 1405, On the throne of Samarcand63, he displayed in a short repose his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints of the people; distributed a just measure of rewards and punishments; employed his riches in the architecture of palaces and temples; and gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tartary, January 8. Russia, and Spain, the last of whom presented a suit of tapestry which eclipsed the pencil of the Oriental artists. The marriages of six of the emperor's grandsons was esteemed an act of religion, as well as of paternal tenderness; and the pomp of the ancient caliphs was revived in their nuptials. They were celebrated in the gardens of Canighul, decorated with innumerable tents and pavilions, which displayed the luxury of a great city and the spoils of a victorious camp. Whole forests were cut down to supply fuel for the kitchens; the plain was spread with pyramids of meat, and vases of every liquor, to which thousands of guests were courteously invited the orders of the state, and the nations of the earth, were marshalled at the royal banquet; nor were the ambassadors of Europe (says the haughty Persian) excluded from the feast: since even the casses, the smallest of fish, find their place in the ocean4: The public 62 Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74–76 (in the ivth part of the Relations de Thevenot), Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine (tom. i. p. 507, 508. folio edition); and for the chronology of the Chinese emperors, de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 71, 72. 63 For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see Sherefeddin (1. vi. c. 1-30.) and Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 35–47), 64 Sherefeddin (1. vi. c. 24.) mentions the ambassadors of one of the most LXV. joy was testified by illuminations and masquerades; the CHAP. trades of Samarcand passed in review; and every trade was emulous to execute some quaint device, some marvellous pageant, with the materials of their peculiar art. After the marriage-contracts had been ratified by the cadhis, the bridegrooms and their brides retired to the nuptial chambers; nine times, according to the Asiatic fashion, they were dressed and undressed; and at each change of apparel, pearls and rubies were showered on their heads, and contemptuously abandoned to their attendants. A general indulgence was proclaimed: every law was relaxed, every pleasure was allowed; the people was free, the sovereign was idle; and the historian of Timour may remark, that, after devoting fifty years to the attainment of empire, the only happy period of his life were the two months in which he ceased to exercise his power. But he was soon awakened to the cares of government and war. The standard was unfurled for the invasion of China; the emirs made their report of two hundred thousand, the select and veteran soldiers of Iran and Touran: their baggage and provisions were transported by five hundred great wagons, and an immense train of horses and camels; and the troops might prepare for a long absence, since more than six months were employed in the tranquil journey of a caravan from Samarcand to Pekin. Neither age, nor the severity of the winter, could retard the impatience of Timour; he mounted on horseback, passed the Sihoon on the ice, marched seventy-six parasangs, three hundred miles, from his capital, and pitched his last camp in the neighbourhood of Otrar, where he was expected by the angel of death. Fatigue, and the indiscreet use of iced His death water, accelerated the progress of his fever; and the on the conqueror of Asia expired in the seventieth year of his China, age, thirty-five years after he had ascended the throne A.D. 1405, of Zagatai. His designs were lost; his armies were disbanded; China was saved; and fourteen years after his decease, the most powerful of his children potent sovereigns of Europe. We know that it was Henry III. king of Castile; and the curious relation of his two embassies is still extant (Mariana, Hist. Hispan. I. xix. c. 11. tom. ii. p. 329, 330. Avertissement à l'Hist. de Timur Bec. p. 28-33). There appears likewise to have been some correspondence between the Mogul emperor, and the court of Charles VII. king of France (Histoire de France, par Velly et Villaret, tom. xij. p. 336); road to April 1. CHAP. sent an embassy of friendship and commerce to the court of Pekin. LXV. Character The fame of Timour has pervaded the East and West; and merits his posterity is still invested with the Imperial title; and of Timour. the admiration of his subjects, who revered him almost as a deity, may be justified in some degree by the praise or confession of his bitterest enemies. Although ན་ he was lame of an hand and foot, his form and stature were not unworthy of his rank; and his vigorous health, so essential to himself and to the world, was corroborated by temperance and exercise. In his familiar discourse he was grave and modest, and if he was ignorant of the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or corrupted with new refinements67. In his religion, he was a zealous, though not perhaps an orthodox, Musulman; but his sound understanding may tempt us to believe, that a superstitious reverence for omens and prophesies, for saints and astrologers, was only affected as an instrument of policy. In the government of a vast empire, he stood alone and absolute, without a rebel to oppose his power, a favourite to seduce his affections, or a minister to mislead his judgment. It was his firmest maxim, that whatever might be the consequence, the word of the prince should never be disputed or recalled; but his foes have maliciously observed, that the commands of anger and destruction were more strictly executed than those of beneficence and favour. His 65 See the translation of the Persian account of their embassy, a curious and original piece (in the fourth part of the Relations de Thevenot). They presented the emperor of China with an old horse which Timour had formerly rode. It was in the year 1419, that they departed from the court of Herat, to which place they returned in 1422 from Pekin. 66 From Arabshalı, tom. ii. c. 96. The bright or softer colours are borrowed from Sherefeddin, d'Herbelot, and the Institutions. 67 His new system was multiplied, from 32 pieces and 64 squares, to 56 pieces and 110 or 130 squares. But, except in his court, the old game has been thought sufficiently elaborate. The Mogul emperor was rather pleased than hurt, by the victory of a subject: a chess-player will feel the value of this encomium! 68 See Sherefeddin, 1. v. c. 15. 25. Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 96 p. 801. 803.) reproves the impiety of Timour and the Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran, the Yacsa, or Law of Zingis (cui Deus maledicat); nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use and authority of that Pagan code. LXV. sons and grandsons, of whom Timour left six-and-thir- CHAP. ty at his decease, were his first and most submissive subjects; and whenever they deviated from their duty, they were corrected, according to the laws of Zingis, with the bastonade, and afterwards restored to honour and command. Perhaps his heart was not devoid of the social virtues; perhaps he was not incapable of loving his friends and pardoning his enemies: but the rules of morality are founded on the public interest; and it may be sufficient to applaud the wisdom of a monarch, for the liberality by which he is not impoverished, and for the justice by which he is strengthened and enriched. To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labours of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince; but, in the discharge of these duties, he finds an ample and immediate recompense. Timour might boast, that, at his accession to the throne, Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, whilst under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was his confidence of merit, that from this reformation he derived an excuse for his victories, and a title to universal dominion. The four following observations will serve to appreciate his claim to the public gratitude; and perhaps we shall conclude, that the Mogul emperor, was rather the scourge than the benefactor of mankind. If some partial disorders, some local oppressions were healed by the sword of Timour, the remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants of Persia might afflict their subjects; but whole nations were crushed under the footsteps of the reformer. The ground which had been occupied by flourishing cities, was often marked by his abominable trophies, by columns, or pyramids, of human heads. Astracan, Carizme, Delhi, Ispahan, Bagdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Boursa, Smyrna, and a thousand others, were sacked, or burnt, or utterly destroyed, in his presence, and by his troops; and per 1. LXV. CHAP. haps his conscience would have been startled, if a priest or philosopher had dared to number the millions of victims whom he had sacrificed to the establishment of peace and order. 2. His most destructive wars were rather inroads than conquests. He invaded Turkestan, Kipzak, Russia, Hindostan, Syria, Anatolia, Armenia, and Georgia, without a hope or a desire of preserving those distant provinces. From thence he departed, laden with spoil; but he left behind him neither troops to awe the contumacious, nor magistrates to protect the obedient, natives. When he had broken the fabric of their ancient government, he abandoned them to the evils which his invasion had aggravated or caused; nor were these evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he laboured to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labours were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigour of enquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the Institutions of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the ambition of his children and grandchildren; the enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of 69 Besides the bloody passages of this narrative, I must refer to an anticipation in the fourth volume of the Decline and Fall, which, in a single note (p. 245. Note 25), accumulates near 300,000 heads of the monuments of his cruelty. Except in Rowe's play on the fifth of November, I did not expect to hear of Timour's amiable moderation (White's preface, p. 7.) Yet I can excuse a generous enthusiasm in the reader, and still more in the editor, of the Institutions. 70 Consult the last chapters of Sherefeddin and Arabshah, and M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. 1. xx). Fraser's History of Nadir Shah, p. 1--62. The story of Timour's descendants is imperfectly told: and the second and third parts of Sherefeddin are unknown. |